A voiced velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound that is used in various spoken languages. It is not found in most varieties of Modern English but existed in Old English. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a latinized variant of the Greek letter gamma, , which has this sound in Modern Greek. It should not be confused with the graphically similar , the IPA symbol for a close-mid back unrounded vowel, which some writingsSuch as and . use for the voiced velar fricative.
The symbol is also sometimes used to represent the velar approximant, which, however, is more accurately written with the lowering diacritic: or . The IPA also provides a dedicated symbol for a velar approximant, .
There is also a voiced post-velar fricative, also called pre-uvular, in some languages. For the voiced pre-velar fricative, also called post-palatal, see .
Features
Features of a voiced velar fricative:
Occurrence Some of the consonants listed as post-velar may actually be fricative trills.
For Basque, Gascon and the Iberian Romance languages (except Portuguese); see voiced velar approximant.
Language Word IPA Meaning Notes Abaza / 'leaf' Adyghe / 'tree' AlbanianArbëresh Moresian (Pelloponesian) dialects of Arvanitika'tall' Alekano 'cucumber' Aleut 'with' Angor 'brother' Angas 'to pick up' Arabic Modern Standard / 'strange' May be velar, post-velar or uvular, depending on dialect. See Arabic phonologyBaghdad Jewish ()'army' Aromanian 'well' Allophone of Aramaic Eastern 'body' Allophone of before voiced consonants. Western Azerbaijani Northern 'son'Southern/oğul Belarusian / 'head' Brahui /ġurring 'to growl' See .Breton 'daughter' Central Alaskan Yup'ik 'his/her/its blood' Never occurs in word-initial positions. Chechen гӀала / 'town' Czech bych byl 'I would be' Allophone of before voiced consonants. See Czech phonology. Occurs only in few Moravian dialects and even there it is rather Dàgáárè[]'woman'May be realized with features closer to a velar tap (a sound previously considered impossible according to the IPA chart), based on acoustic analysis. Dinka ɣo 'us' Dogrib 'for' Dutch Standard Belgian 'satisfaction' Often (partially) devoiced. May be post-palatal instead. See Dutch phonology Southern accentsEnglishScouse[ɣrɑːs]'grass'Allophone of . See British English phonologyNorthumbrianBurr Georgian /ğaribi 'poor' May actually be post-velar or uvular German Austrian 'red' Intervocalic allophone of in casual speech. See Standard German phonology Ghari 'five' Greek γάλα/gála 'milk' See Modern Greek phonology Gujarati વાઘણ/vāġaṇ 'tigress' See Gujarati phonology Gweno ndeghe 'bird' Gwich’in 'his/her chest' Haitian Creole 'rice' Hän 'I am playing' Hebrew Classical /miğdol '[a] tower' Some Modern speakers (usually with a difficulty pronouncing )/shomer'[a male] guard', '[he] guards' by other Modern speakers Hindustani Hindi'poor' Post-velar, conservative Hindi speakers usually replace it with . See Hindustani phonologyUrdu Icelandic 'saga' See Icelandic phonology Irish 'his fist' See Irish phonology Istro-Romanian 'mouth' Corresponds to in standard Romanian. See Romanian phonology Iwaidja 'hermit crab' Japanese / 'baldness' Allophone of , especially in fast or casual speech. See Japanese phonologyHaketiagher[ɣeɾ]'only' appears as a phoneme in words from Arabic Kabardian гын/gyn 'powder' Karen S'gaw Karen 'good' Eastern Pwo 'house' Western Pwo 'alcohol, liquor' Komering harong 'charcoal' Korean 'seventy' Intervocalic allophone of before . See Korean phonology Lezgian /ğel 'sleigh' Lhaovo Dago’ 'water' Yunnan Limburgish 'quick' The example word is from the Maastrichtian dialect.Lishan DidanUrmi Dialectעוטג/otogh'room'Generally post-velar Lithuanian humoras 'humor' Preferred over [ɦ]. See Lithuanian phonology Low GermanR.E. Keller, German Dialects. Phonology and Morphology, Manchester 1960 gaan 'to go' Increasingly replaced with High German Macedonian Berovo accent /duvna 'it blew' Corresponds to etymological of other dialects, before sonorants. See Maleševo-Pirin dialect and Macedonian phonology Bukovo accent /glava 'head' Allophone of instead of usual . See Prilep-Bitola dialect Malay Standard 'dialect' Used in loanwords from Arabic that contain the sound. Replaced with by Indonesian speakers. See Malay phonology Johor'crowded (with people)'Corresponds to prevocalic and intervocalic in Standard Malay and to uvular in certain other Malay varieties such as Kedah Malay. Silent in word-final position. Negeri Sembilan Kelantan-Pattani Terengganu Pahang SarawakVaries with uvular . See Sarawak Malay Malto पेद़ग़े/peðġe 'to break open' See . Mandarin Chinese Central Mandarin (Dongping dialect) /ǎn 'I' Central Mandarin (Ningyang dialect)鹅'goose' Mi'kmaq 'weir' Allophone of between sonorants. See . Navajo 'best' NeapolitanCentral Lucanian (Accettura dialect)chiahäte'wounded'Corresponds to /g/ in Standard Italian. The example "chiahäte" translates to "piagato" in Italian.Nepali'paper'Allophone of and in intervocalic positions. See Nepali phonology Ngwe Mmockngie dialect 'sun' Northern Qiang hhnesh 'February' Norwegian Urban East 'to have' Possible allophone of between two back vowels; can be voiceless instead. See Norwegian phonology Okanagan 'Sparrow hawk' Pashto غاتر/ğatër 'mule' Pela 'to rain' Persian باغ/bāq 'garden' Polish 'let' (imperative particle) Allophone of before voiced consonants. See Polish phonology Portuguese European 'now' Allophone of . See Portuguese phonology Some Brazilian dialects mármore 'marble', 'sill' Allophone of rhotic consonant (voiced equivalent to , itself allophone of ) between voiced sounds, most often as coda before voiced consonants. Punjabi Gurmukhi ਗ਼ਰੀਬ/ġarib'poor' Less frequent in Gurmukhi varieties where it may be replaced by .Shahmukhi/ġarīb Romani γoines 'good' Russian Southern дорога/doroga 'road' Corresponds to in standard Standard угу/ugu 'uh-huh' Usually nasal, is used when spoken. See Russian phonology / goroh že 'the peas' Allophone of before voiced consonants.Jones, Daniel & Ward, Dennis (1969) The Phonetics of Russian. Cambridge University Press. Sakha /ağa 'father' Sardinian Nuorese dialect 'to suck' Allophone of Scottish Gaelic 'lawful' More advanced than other velars. See Scottish Gaelic phonology Serbo-Croatian 'of these would' Allophone of before voiced consonants. See Serbo-Croatian phonology Shughni 'to bark' See Shughni phonology Sindhi /ġamu 'sadness' Slovak bäch bäl 'I could be' Allophone of before voiced consonants. See Slovak phonology. SloveneStandard'to the mountain'Allophone of before voiced obstruents. See Slovene phonologySome dialects 'crate' Corresponds to in Standard Slovene. See Slovene phonology Swahili ghali 'expensive' Swedish Västerbotten Norrland dialects 'me' Allophone of . Occurs between vowels and in word-final positions. Here also in Kalix. Tadaksahak zog 'war' Tajik /cafs 'thick' Tamazight aɣilas (aghilas) 'leopard' TamilSri Lankanபகை/pakai'hate' Intervocalic singular /k/ has debuccalized for most except in Brahmin and Sri Lankan Tamil. In total it can be [kʰ x ɡ ɣ ɣʰ h] Turkish Non-standard 'tree' Deleted in most dialects. See Turkish phonology Tutchone Northern 'tooth' Southern 'baby' Tyap 'to hurry' Ukrainianчахохбі́лі[tʃɐxoɣˈbil⁽ʲ⁾i]‘chakhokhbili’Occurs in specific rare cases only. Uzbek / 'rain' Post-velar. Vietnamese 'chair' See Vietnamese phonology West Frisian 'to carry' Never occurs in word-initial positions. Wu Chinese Northern () 'to join' Xiang Chinese Old () 'Hunan (province)' Yi / 'win' Zhuang 'Wild duckling'
See also Index of phonetics articles Voiceless velar fricative Guttural
Notes
References
External links